Clyburn says he ‘wholeheartedly’ endorses Biden’s voting rights remarks
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (DS.C.) said Sunday he “wholeheartedly” supported President Biden’s suffrage speech last week, even though some congressional lawmakers have expressed concern. dissatisfaction with his comments.
“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Clyburn on NBC what he thought of Biden’s remarks in Atlanta, noting that Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) had some issues with what was said.
“I wholeheartedly approve of them. Look, when we came out of Reconstruction in 1876, we started losing the right to vote. We started losing other freedoms. And we called it Jim Crow,” Clyburn said.
“We had a very successful election in 2020. People voted at higher levels than they ever had before. And in response to that, Georgia, Texas, and 17 other states started adopting draconian suffrage laws. To me, that’s Jim Crow 2.0. And so I like the way the president said it because that’s exactly what it is,” he said. he continued.
During his speech in Atlanta last week, Biden directly criticized election laws passed by GOP-controlled state legislatures. Biden accused Republicans in state legislatures of “attacking the right to vote” and warned that their bills “would turn the will of voters into a mere suggestion.”
“Do you want to side with Dr. King or George Wallace?” Do you want to side with John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to side with Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? Biden asked.
After Biden’s speech, Durbin said Biden may have gone “a bit too far” with his rhetoric.
“Maybe the president went a little too far in his rhetoric. Some of us do, but the core principles and values at stake are very, very similar,” he said.
While speaking in the Senate last week, Romney also took issue with the implicit comparison of Republicans to segregationists like Wallace and Connor.
“He accused voting against his bill of allying us with Bull Connor, George Wallace and Jefferson Davis. So much for unifying the country and working across the aisle,” Romney said, criticizing what he said. he considered accusations of Biden’s “racist tendencies”. against his GOP colleagues.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki later called the reactions to Biden’s speech “hilarious,” given remarks former President Trump made while in office.
“I know there were a lot of claims about the offensive nature of yesterday’s speech, which is hilarious on many levels, given how many people have sat in silence over the past four years for the former president. “, she said.